Demand-based messaging is a communication service that allows people to exchange message data, such as text, over a network or other communications media, in real time. Probably the most common medium for exchange is the Internet, but as wireless phone networks continue to expand, their popularity for text messaging is also expanding. U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,609 issued to Aravamudun et al., and U.S. Patent Publications Nos. 2002/0035605 and 2004/0254998, for example, illustrate the move toward an exchange medium that unifies traditional and wireless communications. Instant messaging (IM) is perhaps the most widely known and used embodiment of demand-based messaging. Today, most network and online service providers offer some form of IM service. According to some estimates, the top three instant messaging service providers serve over forty million users. Instant messaging services also are being rapidly deployed and integrated into enterprise infrastructure. International Business Machines, Inc. (IBM), for example, has deployed LOTUS SAMETIME instant messaging applications for employees world-wide. Other examples of IM applications that are popular today include MSN Messenger and Yahoo/AOL Instant Messenger.
IM users typically use a networked computer and an IM client program to exchange messages with one another in conversational style. An IM client provides an interface for users to compose, send, receive, and read messages. In a graphical display, an IM client usually includes at least two windows: a window for composing and sending messages, and a window for displaying messages as users take turns sending and receiving them. IM sessions (colloquially referred to as “chats”) are often lengthy, with multiple participants each taking many turns “speaking” in the chat window. Generally, a user initiates a chat by sending a chat request to a second IM user (or group of IM users). The request may also include the first message from the user. The chat is “open” after the second IM user accepts the request or otherwise responds to it, and typically remains open until one user affirmatively closes the chat. It is common for one user to have multiple IM chats open simultaneously, usually in separate windows.
In many of today's graphical operating systems, including the MICROSOFT WINDOWS family of operating systems, windows can be “minimized” as needed to organize the information on a given display. As that term is used popularly, a window is “minimized” when it is reduced to an icon so that it uses only a small portion of the display. Typically, icons representing minimized windows are grouped together and placed along the edge of a screen in a graphical element commonly referred to as a “task bar.” Of course, not much information about a window is visible when the window is minimized. When a chat window is minimized, for example, a user will generally see only a short title and, perhaps, a sender's name. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary graphical display 100 with icon 105, task bar 110, command button 115, minimized application windows 120-125, minimized chat window 130, and minimized chat window 135. Note that in FIG. 1, minimized chat windows 130 and 135 display the sender's names (“Al” and “Bill”, respectively).
As the number of windows in a graphical display increases, the operating system typically decreases the size of icons in the task bar and the length of the text displayed in each icon. Thus, as FIG. 2 illustrates, even a sender's name may not be completely visible in a minimized chat window and it becomes difficult for a user to determine the nature of the chat without constantly restoring the chat window to its full size. In FIG. 2, minimized application window 140 has been added to task bar 110, and minimized chat windows 130 and 135 have been compressed to make room for the new icon. Note that the sender's name is no longer visible in minimized chat window 135.
Moreover, the operating system may compress all chat windows into a single icon in the task bar if there are too many icons to display at once. If all chat windows are so compressed, all identifying attributes of the various chats are lost to the user. FIG. 3 illustrates this scenario, in which minimized application window 145 has been added to task bar 110. Because there is no longer room to display all minimized windows in the task bar, the operating system has compressed minimized chat windows 130 and 135 into a single, new minimized group window 150. As FIG. 3 illustrates, minimized group window 150 does not display any chat-specific information.
Some conventional IM clients also include limited means for notifying a user when a user receives a new message or the chat is otherwise “active.” An “active” chat, as that term is used here, is an open chat in which at least one message has been transmitted since the user last viewed the chat window. Common techniques include causing the window (minimized or not) to blink. Such techniques, though, do little to focus attention to a specific chat when multiple chat windows are compressed into a single minimized group. U.S. Pat. No. 6,907,447 (issued Jun. 14, 2005) addresses this shortcoming to some extent, disclosing a “Method and Apparatus for Providing an Instant Message Notification” that provides a sender's identification and the message topic in a separate window that “pops up” when a user receives a new message.
Either the operating system or the IM client also may display information about a given chat when a user “hovers” a pointer or cursor over a minimized chat window. In this context, the term “hover” refers to placing the pointer over the minimized window and leaving the pointer in such a position for a period of time determined by the operating system or the IM client. The time period typically is only a second or two. Generally, the operating system or IM client displays information such as the user's name and the application's name, usually in a pop-up window or “cloud” element.
Thus, existing messaging applications that rely on an operating system to manage chat windows are too cumbersome for effectively organizing and using multiple chat windows, and there remains a need to advance the state of the art of demand-based messaging to overcome these shortcomings.